Trouble Starts with Three
by Ringtailer720
Summary: Bus-jacking, Molly Cule songs, and three unlikely allies in a quest to save the world as we know it, without getting themselves killed in the process. In response to lianneharmony's Any Universe Challenge.


Response fanfiction to lianneharmony's Any Universe Challenge

Must include:  
1) Janet  
2) Pluto  
3) Mikey  
4) Molly Cule  
5) Spiders  
6) Wanda getting into trouble

Bus-jacking, Molly Cule songs, and three unlikely allies in a quest to save the world as we know it, without getting themselves killed in the process. WARNING: This fic is not to be taken seriously or with aspirin. Do not operate heavy machinery under the influence of this fic.

Disclaimers: I do not own The Magic School Bus, KITT, HAL, or the Spydorz. Pluto owns itself.

* * *

(Trouble Starts with Three)

If somebody told you that the fate of the world was in the hands of Janet, Mikey and Wanda, you would probably say that they were crazy. Or Ralphie, but he doesn't play a role in this fic.

It all started on a warm summer afternoon, just a week after high school graduation. Janet stalked towards the door of Wanda and Carlos's shared...well, it was a house long ago, but now it seemed that it was falling apart at the seams. If the two didn't throw the best wild parties here, Janet would have suggested a blow torch and some gasoline, but she really wasn't here for pleasure.

The redhead stopped and raised an arm, the bracelets on her wrists tinkling together as she knocked on the door carefully; it wouldn't help her case if the door suddenly fell in. She pushed a few stray curls behind her ear before the door tugged open, revealing a young teenage boy sitting in a wheelchair.

"Janet, what brings you to the Flea Bag Hotel? You know the next party isn't for another week?" Mikey Ramon smiled, his eyes looking over the young woman standing before him. He was so much like his older brother Carlos, a real ladies' man, that "working" at a place like the Flea Bag was no trouble at all. Actually he was more like a doorman-greeter than anything else and also served as receptionist.

Janet frowned. "Enough chit-chat, I want my panties back. The ones that Carlos took and probably has displayed over the fireplace for his own amusement."

The sound of heels clicking on the hardwood floors got louder, and Wanda stood behind the younger teen.

"Oh hi Janet. Are you looking for Carlos?" Wanda asked, her voice pure sugar but her eyes expressing all of her undying hatred for her on-again-off-again boyfriend's cousin. Janet could hear the lyrics to the latest trashy song by Molly Cule, and thought the music fit appropriately with her mental image of Wanda the Trailer Trash Ho. "I'm sorry, but he isn't in right now. I think he might be with DA or something."

Janet caught the door with her hand before the Asian-American could slam the thing in her face; she pushed her way around Mikey.

"I'm not here for _him_," she said, "I came here to retrieve the panties he took from me."

"Ohh la la," Wanda teased, swaggering over to the sink where a pile of crusty old dishes and coffee mugs waited to be washed. "So you and he had a one night fling, eh? I'd stay away from Dorothy Ann if I were you then. She doesn't like it when her man gets pulled under the influence of another girl."

Mikey returned to his station at what passed for a kitchen table. A phone whose base had been pulled from the wall and a caller ID display was nearby. He returned to reading a newspaper Wanda had snatched from a neighboring house and tried to ignore the two older women. He had learned after seeing repeated conflicts between his brother's seven friends to not get involved in a potential catfight, but to hang around to watch the fur fly.

A scuffling and banging sound from above caught the three off-guard; they raised their heads to watch some of the ceiling paint fall to the ground like snow. Mikey merely turned the page and continued his reading.

"That's the sound of Carlos's bed."

Janet shook her head; too much information and more than she'd care to ever know had occurred within five minutes. She just came to retrieve her panties. And all Mikey could do was just sit there reading the paper without even flinching at the sounds of Carlos getting it on upstairs (probably with DA, Janet thought).

"What's that?" Wanda cut into the silence that had ensued after Mikey had intervened; she snatched the paper from his hands and ignored his protests, turning to look at the article in the Science section.

"_'Scientists Remove Planet Status from Pluto'_? What the hell is this?" Janet sided next to Wanda in order to read the article for herself. "_'After redefining the term 'planet', scientists have decided that a better term for Pluto would be 'dwarf planet'.'_"

The two girls stood in silence, while Mikey gave up on that section and continued on with the Entertainment one.

"Do you know what this means?" Janet turned her eyes towards Wanda, who looked back at her. She could almost see the cogs turning in Wanda's head, but in her own she could still feel the weight of the space rocks she had collected (and subsequently left behind on the--dwarf--planet Pluto).

"Yea..." Wanda frowned, "_Ms. Frizzle lied to us!_" Then the shorter of the two stomped off, heading towards the door. Janet exchanged a look with Mikey, Mikey exchanged one with Janet, and about a mile away, Tim exchanged a look with his _Terminator_ poster.

* * *

"Why are we here again?"

"Here" happened to be just outside the bushes that surrounded the third grade teacher's property, where Wanda, Janet, and Mikey waited for Wanda to make up her mind. Mikey had decided to tag along so Wanda wouldn't do anything stupid or dangerous to get herself into trouble.

"I'm going to give the Friz a piece of my mind. I mean, if she lied about Pluto being a planet, than what else did she lie about?"

As Wanda, and by extension Janet and Mikey, approached one of the windows to the home, they could hear the sounds of some really sad instrumental piece (or was it Gregorian chanting) filtering from the slightly open window. Wanda crouched down and approached the window, turning to look at the two who had tagged along.

"I swear I'll scream if she's in the middle of some wild orgy with Pheeb's old teacher--"

"--And Molly Cule?" Janet had only meant to think this, but judging by the way that Wanda was glaring at her she had spoken this aloud.

"_Blasphemy!_" With one final look back, Wanda steeled herself for whatever and looked into the window. She stood there for what seemed like forever before she crouched back down.

Janet rolled her eyes. "So what was it?"

"She's got this weird shrine thing or something with all this stuff on Pluto. She looks like she's mourning something."

Janet was ticked off with the fact that she'd got grass stains on her new designer blue jeans and had wasted time following Wanda around. Mikey was hoping that Carlos didn't take the paper before he could finish it. Wanda was deflated, wishing that she had been able to go through with her plan of accusing her old teacher of lying but still feeling like she needed vindication for her troubles.

Then, she got an idea.

True, it was an idea that could possibly get her killed. It could also be what finally got Ms. Frizzle over the edge enough to see what she was like angry (no class of hers had ever dared to try and pull it off, but they were all curious as to what she'd be like furious). It would also be one hell of a ride.

She walked towards the garage, where the old Magic School Bus was parked. Surprisingly it looked no different than the last day Wanda and her friends had seen it, and it was sitting. Right. There.

Wanda's eyes lit up, and she turned to face the other two with an evil smirk. Janet felt a chill run up her spine as she put two and two together. "You aren't thinking what I think you're thinking about, right Wanda?"

"Oh come on! The only thing that's missing is a giant neon sign that says 'Hijack Me' in bright letters."

Without any hesitation, Wanda climbed into the Bus, hitting a button that would extend a wheelchair lift for Mikey. Mikey exchanged another look with Janet and shrugged, and soon he too was on the Bus. Finally Janet sighed, shrugged her own shoulders and said, "What the hell?" before boarding too.

* * *

Surprisingly, the Bus hadn't acted up at all, and Wanda calmly drove along. "So what should we do first?"

"I really don't--_oh sweet Jebus!_" Mikey cried out, pointing at something along the western skyline. Janet peered from behind Wanda, hardly believing her own eyes at the sight of what looked to be tarantula-sized--

"Spiders!" The trio of troublemakers chorused, and even the Bus winced (though that may have been from the screech of the three teenagers that had hijacked it) at the site. Strange as it seemed, the town was swarmed with what had to be giant spiders. Wanda slammed on the breaks to avoid running over a long line of spiders that had been waiting to cross the street but had gotten tired of waiting. At least they knew why the town had seemed pretty empty.

"Wait a second..." Wanda finally spoke up, leaning forward enough to get a closer look at the spider that had climbed onto the windshield. It seemed to her as if it had a red dome-thing for an eye. "I think these are Spydorz, not regular spiders!"

Janet eyed Wanda in disbelief. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Wanda turned in her seat, oblivious to the fact that more and more of the mechanical spiders were swarming onto the windshield. She scoffed as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Spydorz, they're in _Chibi-Robo_. Although the game hasn't come out yet in America..."

Mikey shook his head. "Wanda, how do you even know about a game that doesn't even exist here yet?"

"Hey Mikey?"

"Yea?"

"Your. Mom."

The three sat quietly, the only sounds heard were the creaks and groans of the Bus as the Spydorz moved about it. Janet tried not to compare their movements with that of...what she had caught Arnold and Phoebe doing at Carlos's last party...bad, bad, bad thought! "What are we going to do about this--this--" Janet waved her hand about, indicating the swarm outside the Bus.

"How about Dunkin' Donuts?"

**_"How about a little action, instead of letting these things go to town on me?"_** The three shrieked at the unknown voice, which sounded like a cross between KITT and HAL. **_"And stop that screaming!"_**

It took a moment before the three realized that it was the BUS that was speaking to them, and that they all weren't going crazy. Even then, they still thought they were going crazy. "_Sweet Jebus!_" Mikey cried out again, finally sure that all the lead dust and residual bug bomb spray in the Flea Bag Hotel had finally poisoned his mind and driven him insane.

**_"Oh for the love of--It looks like I have to do everything myself."_** The Bus said, and then a great shudder ran through the metal body of the school bus. The Spydorz that had gripped the Bus were forced off from the great speed generated from the rockets. Wanda found that there was no point in holding onto the steering wheel, since apparently she was no longer in control. As they crashed into several large piles of the robot spiders, the three teenagers screamed their lungs out and the Bus's voice laughed maniacally in its KITT-HAL voice--

_

* * *

_

"Gyaaah!"

Janet screamed as she sat up in the bed, her hand going to her heart. She gasped as the realization that it was all just a dream sunk in, and she allowed herself to relax a bit in the dim lighting of the unfamiliar bedroom.

Suddenly some movement out of the corner of her eye caused the redhead to turn her attention to the person lying down next to her.

Carlos grinned up at her, everything beneath his waist concealed by a lime green sheet while he reclined against his pillow. "Good morning, sleepyhead. Have a bad dream?"

_

* * *

_

"Gyahhh!"

Once again Janet found herself wake up in an unfamiliar setting; she looked around the hotel room briefly before getting up and heading towards the small bathroom. She flicked on the light, splashed some water on her face, and then patted it dry with the hotel towel. She looked into the mirror to see Tim's face reflected back at her. She almost panicked when she thought that she was dreaming she was Tim, but a soothing baritone from behind her caused her to whip around in her bunny slippers.

"Honey are you alright?"

"Tim what's going on? Where are we?"

He wrapped her in his arms, hushing her gently and patting her back. "It's okay. We went a little overboard with the champagne on our honeymoon celebration last night." She sighed with relief, resting her head against his warm shoulder. Suddenly it hit her.

"Wait, we're married?"

_

* * *

_

"Gyaaaah!"

This time Janet's eyes snapped open and she found herself on a couch in a shrink's office. She panted heavily, wondering if this was the real thing or if she was still dreaming. She heard a KITT-HAL voice clear its throat, and turned her eyes in the direction of the Bus, which rested with no good reason (or maybe it did since it was a magic school bus after all) where a doctor would normally sit.

**_"Now really, are you going to keep that screaming up or am I going to have to resort to electroshock therapy?"_**

_"Gyahhhh!"_

(END)

* * *


End file.
